New Ulm weekly review., 1887-03-16

Wednesday, March 16,, 1887.
A friend who is member of the new
Union Labor Party writes us that in
our comments on tho Industrial labor
convention held at Cincinnati we ''did
the new party an injustice, since its
platform is the outgrowth of the honest
endeavor of toiling millions against
monopoly and misrule." 1t will be re.
membered that our criticism was based
upon the incongruities and contradic-
tions which in our opinion are con-
tanned in the platform drafted at Gin
cinnati. In that section of our brain
which is strictly non-partisan we have
for long time been favoring such re-
forms as state ownership of railroads
and telegraphs, the reclamation of
lands held for speculative purposes,
and the levying of an income tax as the
most equitable system of taxation; and
attentive readers of the REVIEW must
have noticed that on these topics our
opinions have been expressed with great
frankness and decision. We did not
expect, however, that the solution of
such problems would be accomplished
by the heterogeneous elements that met
at Cincinnati. A new party that in
vites ''the people of this whole country
to come out of old party organizations
and to help it ''to organize a new polit-
ical party not sectional, but national,"
dooms itself to premature death by
admitting into its platform demands
{lo% ~ o<<
to it's central principle. The preamble
to the platform of the union labor party
calls attention to the following points:
"A general discomfort prevails on the
part Of the wealth-producers; farmers
are suffering from poverty which has
forced most of them to mortgage their
estates, and prices of products are so
low as to offer no relief except through
bankruptcy. Laborers are sinking in
to greater and greater dependence;
strikes are reserted to without bringing
relief, because of the inability of en-
ployers in most cases to pay living wag-
to the streets. Business men find col.
lections almost impossible, meantime
hundreds of millions of idle public
money, which is needed for relief, is
locked up in the .. S. treasury in grim
mockery of the distress. Land mono
poly Hourishes as never before, and
more and more owners of the soil are
daily becoming tenants. Great trans
portation corporations still succeed in
extorting their profits upon watered
stock through unjust charges. The
United States senate has become an
open scandal, its seats being purchased
by the rich in open defiance of the pop
"ular will. A trifing fisheries dispute is
seized upon as an excuse for squander-
ing public money upon unnecessary
military preparations which are de-
signed to breed spirit of war, to ape
European despotism, and to empty the
treasury without paying the public
debit After this forcible and, we ad-
mit substantially correct statement of
the problem, let us glance at the solu-
ton as laid down in the new party s
platform. IS l. Every human being
possesses q natural inalienable right to
sufficient land for self-support, and we
desire to secure to every industrious
citizen home, as the highest result ot
free institutions To this end we de-
mand graduated land tax on all large
estates, especially those held for specu-
lative or tenant purposes; the reclama-
ton of all unearned land grants; the
immediate opening of Oklahoma tc
homestead settlement; the purchase o.
all unoccupied Indian lands, and the
settlement of the various tribes upor
lands in severalty; also laws preventing
corporations from acquiring real estate
beyond the requirements of their bust
ness and alien ownership of land. The
systems of irrigation in states and terri
tories, where necessary, should be un
der such public control as shall secure
the free and equitable use of water and
franchises to the people," Very we'll.
If the convention had stopped righ,
here, allowing Henry George to com
plete the work. we should have had NJ
opportunity for charging its platform
with incongruity. But by the time tn,
9th plank was reached, Georgeism hat
faded into nothing, and it was asserted
that ssa graded income tax is the mos
equitable system of taxation, placing
the burden of government on those wht
can best afford to pay, instead of laying
it on the farmers and producers, ane
exempting millionaire bond-holders ant
corporations. We do not hold that F.
graded income tax is inconsistent .witl
a graded land tax; but there is nothing
in the platform to show that the con.
vention was able or even willing to rec
oncile the two demands. s'S2. The
means of communication and trans.
= L.
by the people, as is the U. S. postal ser
vice, and equitable rates everywhere es
tablished." If you cannot vote fol
state ownership, you must vote for in
terstate and intrastate commerce meas
ures; and if neither of these are thought
to bring the desired relief, the new par
ty would relieve you through the medi
UNI of the following neatly-woven ia
brio: ''sS. The establishment of {
national monetary system in the inter